After identifying general trends in the results from OPERANDO and other user research projects relating to how users perceive software utility, our team decided to formally investigate its impact upon technology acceptance rates.
This formal study focussed on the responses of three user cohorts. I led the semi-structured interviews for the UK social care cohort. Research partners interviewed healthcare cohorts in Italy and Spain. This completed the chosen research group; with two trials, resulting in six sub-studies. The study distinguishes between the ease of use of the technology and the perceived usefulness of it. The study also considered the ultimate end users of the software – whether the public would adopt it in the future.
OPERANDO (Online Privacy Enforcement, Rights Assurance aND Optimization) project – EU H2020 funded – provided a unique context for the UK social care cohort. The participants were asked to role-play as users of a relatively new idea. Privacy as a Service (PaaS). This is an open source platform used to provide secure storage and privacy enforcement of personal data as a dedicated cloud service. Our OPERANDO case study describes the project in more detail.
It is clear that for any technology to be readily adopted the user must view the software as relevant to them, to see it in context. From the micro level of assisting a user with an individual task to the macro level of benefitting the wider community as a whole.
If you wish to view this study in full please click here
